Zero Carbon Systems

Zero Carbon Systems develops direct air capture systems that remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. The company combines a proprietary sorbent and contactor process with a continuous engineering design intended for high throughput and low energy consumption. Systems are designed to run on renewable electricity, with the stated aim of reducing the cost per ton of CO2 captured.

The company builds and operates its own hardware. A pilot carbon capture unit with a nominal capacity of one kiloton of CO2 per year has been operating near Denver, Colorado since December 2022. Demonstration and production facilities are in design in Brighton, Colorado. In 2024 Zero Carbon Systems acquired Global Thermostat, taking on more than a decade of carbon-removal research.

Work spans mechanical and process design, sorbent materials science, contactor engineering, pilot-plant construction and operations, environmental health and safety, techno-economic analysis, renewable energy integration and the development of commercial-scale equipment. The engineering programme is aimed at scale: designs target million-ton annual capacity per facility, deployment at megaton scale and beyond, and 0.5 gigatons of CO2 removed annually by 2050.